Private polling commissioned by Rebecca Long-Bailey back in February finally emerged in full this week. This comes as her comms chief Matt Zarb Cousin discussed some of the not-great-for-RLB numbers on a YouTube live stream. It gets worse…

Delving into the numbers, it becomes pretty obvious why Team Long-Bailey didn’t release the YouGov findings, with loyal party members giving the prospective Labour leader fairly dismal ratings, ranking her bottom on issues like being able to unite the party, being a good media performer and being able to appeal to ‘Red Wall’ seats.

Despite party members avoiding the obvious continuity Corbyn candidate, the polling found that members both backed Sir Keir in almost all personal attributes including “Shares my values“, and overwhelmingly back Corbynomics:

Following in the footsteps of Ian Lavery, in a Zoom call to supporters last week, Rebecca Long-Bailey claimed that the coronavirus crisis gives Labour the chance to campaign, Guido can reveal. Talking to what she thought was a group of just supporters, the leadership candidate claimed:

“The case in this crisis is being made very strongly for socialism and we need to make sure that people don’t forget that all of the support that we’re pushing for, it is socialism.“

For the avoidance of doubt, a few months of emergency measures taken now are not socialism, will take years to pay off, and would be disastrous to deploy in normal times. Keep it classy, Becky…

Labour’s leadership election has become much more subdued due to the Coronavirus outbreak, with their announcement event (due on April 4) being cancelled; however the zeal of Rebecca Long-Bailey’s hard left supporters hasn’t softened. Messages sent last night in the ‘LDN for RLB’ WhatsApp group – used to organise Labour members campaigning for Rebecca for Leader – show Long-Bailey’s activists calling for a “Real Labour Jehad (sic) to bring equality for all”. An unfortunate campaign slogan…

One Becky supporter voiced his (mild) concern, that there are “negative connotations with that word, mate. Context-wise yeah I agree.” With another activist warning that “it only takes one person with a grudge to join the group and put it all over Twitter…. Imagine the bloody fauxtrage from the sensibles”. Just imagine…

The group’s admin info links to the official campaigns guide setting out the groups’ guidelines, asking participants to both stay on topic, and be respectful and tolerant. Some of Becky’s fans clearly don’t understand the rules…

Corbynite favourite Rebecca Long-Bailey was on the ropes with Andrew Neil this evening, becoming progressively redder as the interview went on. Just in complexion rather than policy…

Flustered Long-Bailey ended up defending Blair’s disastrous private finance initiatives, which cost the taxpayer far more than the upfront cost, saying “PFI was the only game in town”. She was pushed into defending something even Blairites distance themselves from these days. It’s all over for Long-Bailey now.

Angela Rayner took a night off from her campaign this week to go boozing in the Red Lion – only to inadvertently find herself surrounded by Conservative staffers. One Tory aide told the deputy leadership candidate, “you’re definitely going to win because you’re about 1000 times more competent than Burgon”. Rayner, enthusiastically nodding in agreement, exclaimed: “Thank you!!”

Rayner was far more diplomatic when the cheeky Tory bag carriers tried getting her to comment on the main leadership race, with her only saying she’d be able to work very well with Sir Keir should he beat her flatmate Becky. The Tory activists were hoping for longer with the boozing candidate, alas a Labour aide spotted the potentially incriminating pitfalls and promptly whisked her away…